[Low-Tech]Question about silk horse armor

[DanHoward]

Low-Tech isn't supposed to be Euro-centric. Silk is only +19CF if the product is sourced locally. If it is imported then you add other modifiers on top. Pricing in LT was determined by both historical pricing and utility. If the price was based purely on historical prices then mail would cost a lot more than plate.

[RGTraynor]

Originally Posted by Rupert

Note that modern pricing of cotton is just as 'off' for historical comparisons as that of modern silk is. A quick look at some fabric stores suggests anything from 1:1 cotton:silk to 1:3 in pricing, and linen costing as much or more than silk, which was really, really not the case in Europe historically.

... never mind cotton vs 100% wool.

Originally Posted by DanHoward

Every price in Low-Tech is subjective. There is no such thing as a fixed historical price.

Yeah. One of my biggest bugbears is the shibboleth that "medieval" was some unitary era where prices and availability were all the same, throughout the period, from hardscrabble 9th century Scotland to the glittering city-states of 14th century northern Italy.

And the people who hold to that shibboleth live in an era where just 50 years ago, you could get gasoline in the United States for 29 cents a gallon, and computers with a fraction the capability of a laptop Walmart sells for $300 cost millions of dollars and filled small rooms. Go figure.

[DanHoward]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

Something isn't matching up. That suggests clothing retailers are willing to take massively smaller margins to carry silk garments.

Cheaper items have a greater markup than more expensive items. A retailer would rather sell one $1000 item than ten $100 items. In the latter, the retailer needs ten times more labour and to carry ten times as much stock to generate the same revenue. So, with expensive items, the overheads are comparatively lower so he can have a lower profit margin.

[Rasna]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

I'm looking at a padded cloth caparison for a horse.

The rules for silk armor (LT104) say it is +19CF for any type of cloth armor to be silk.

The rules for a horse caparison (LT117) say it is 500% the cost of human torso armor.

Is this the same as saying the cost for the silk caparison should be base torso cost ($50) +23CF (=$1150)? Or should it be $50 + 19CF = 1000 x 5 = $5000?

On a less crunchy level, isn't +19CF for silk kind of unrealistically high? I see 100% silk shirts advertised on LL Bean for about $80 bucks which is certainly not 20x the cost of other shirts.

For that caparison, using Low-Tech rules, the cost is 50*5(size)*20(cost factor) = $5000 and the weight is 6*5 = 30 lbs. (or 12 kg, if you prefer, using the 1 lb. = 0.4 kg conversion merely for game purpouses).

If the caparison is Expertly Tailored, then the cost is 50*5*25 = $6250 and the weight is 6*5*0.85 = 25.5 lbs. (rounded to 10.2 kg).

DR is 1* (2* vs. cutting and impaling). Useless against firearms, but quite good against swords and light arrows.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

On a less crunchy level, isn't +19CF for silk kind of unrealistically high? I see 100% silk shirts advertised on LL Bean for about $80 bucks which is certainly not 20x the cost of other shirts.

If LL Bean had to buy their silk from a Venetian monopoly, who shipped the silk to Venice on ships the size of a modest-sized modern patrol boat, after acquiring it from brokers in Constantinople, who acquired it from brokers in Bukhara, who bought it from merchants who carried it via camel caravan from Shanghai, via the Gobi Desert, with bandits all along the way, the price might be higher. :D

(Anyhow, genuine Silk Road Venetian monopoly silk shirts have more a Banana Republic or J. Peterman vibe and they're (mostly) out of business.)